Zima

BIOGRAPHY: Karen Zima was born in Easton, Pennsylvania. She is a popular American artist whose works have won numerous top awards in top-rated art shows and venues throughout the U.S. Her talent was recognized early, when at the age of ten she won a prize for a portrait in a school contest. After high school, she furthered her art studies at Penn State. She is a prolific painter who is known for her great attention to detail and color in her work. She can make brilliant colors dance on the canvas to create a magical and alluring work of art. Her expertise is painting in oil, acrylic and pastel. Throughout her life, she draws inspiration from everyday experiences and the people around her. She studied photography at Penn State and the local community college. After college, she worked as a professional artist and photographer for an advertising agency. She worked mostly doing slide presentations for big corporations, stock brochures, ads and clothing catalogues. Photography has always fascinated her with it’s ability to capture a precise moment in time. For a time, she worked as a court artist for local newspapers and television stations. She found this to be very challenging. Drawing people that are constantly moving forced her to quickly memorize the facial features and expressions in order to capture the courtroom drama. She loves landscape photography and traveling the globe for that shot. She believes that photography forces you to look around, open your eyes and see the beauty in life. Through the lens, she strives to create images that provoke thought and evoke emotion. There is that one split second that captures the essence of a person, and for her-- that is such a powerful thing. She believes that photography forces you to look around, open your eyes and see the beauty in life. Through the lens, she strives to create images that provoke thought and evoke emotion.

ARTIST STATEMENT: I create because I must. To exist without producing any works of art, whether it be through the brush or through the lens, would be a life unlived. My work is both reflection and expression of myself. It is my lifeline.

It would be very difficult to pinpoint my inspiration as an artist because my art is internally driven and everything around me inspires me. My art is also based on my emotions at the time I am painting it. It is an eternal journey into my soul, and my art is a diary of my life. I seek to stimulate the viewer's emotions through the passion I feel when I am immersed in a painting.

My vision as an artist is to take my inspiration and creativity and turn something that is invisible to most people into a work of art and show them what I am seeing, and hope they enjoy it. Without vision an image is just an image. With vision, an image becomes a message that provokes an emotion from the viewer. And, that is the whole thing about art. It has the power to produce a variety of human emotions. My art is a record of what my feelings and emotions are, and at the same time, it can bring about emotional reactions in the viewer.